“Without the blacksmithing work, there wasnt enough to pay him. Not without takin food from our mouths.” Demas shook again, scarin me til I realized that it was just a new way he had of bein. “Once I do this work for Grayson, I will be tru paying DeGannes and I can give the land to you. This is the only way I can see to keep it.”
“You gonna make them bits he wants you to make?”
Demas didnt answer so I took that to mean what I supposed it meant.
“I am trusting you. I hope you wont betray us,” he said. “You must care for and protect Rosa if she doesnt m-marry before I die.” He closed his eyes. He aint never done this fore the apoplexy. “I fear sh-she will wander all the days of her life, that there will be no—no one to see about her, protect her from sheself.”
“Youre strong as an ox.” I was scared at the thought of his leavin me to care for his property and the two people he loved most. I aint know if I could do it. “Rosa will be fine. Aint she always fine?”
“It is Eve who is always fine,” he said. “Rosa needs to be understood.”
Demas was right, and I was shamed that I aint know it already.
“And when men like Grayson come around, your eyes must speak of pride in my daughters.”
“Can I ask a question?” Demas didnt say yes and I wondered if he meant not to. “What kinda business was it you did with DeGannes? Grayson said somethin bout your conscience.”
“If you cannot do what I need, then tell me now and I will take my chances and leave my girls to fight in this world alone.”
“Grayson surprised me, is all.”
“I was to prepare you better. They want us never to grow accustomed to anyting good.”
“Well. Too late for that.” I smiled.
“But our family is not only the f-four of us,” Demas said. “Everybody who looks like me and Rosa and Eve, you m-must try and see in the same way you does see us. Until they pr-prove otherwise. You understand?” He leaned toward me now and I could see the top of his lip tremble. “We does say it here in Trinidad that ‘we is we.’”
Rosa was still bitin mad though I hadnt seen her much. It was a Sunday and me and Eve was just comin back from church services when Eve sat down cross from me wearin that blue dress with the round collar and shell buttons I liked. It was nice to look at her. Her face was always new. Like lookin into the bottom of a lake and seein how much life there was in it.
“I dont want you to feel as if you cannot leave,” she said.
I figured Demas musta told her that he talked to me. I reached for a banana and sliced it with my skinnin knife. We shared it. “Why you aint never marry?” I said.
This aint somethin a man should ask a woman less he got intentions. So I guess I had intentions.
“Who told you I wished to marry?” Eve grinned and smoothed the ruffles on her cuffs. “You must find me quite old, is that it?”
I found her just right. But truth be told, I aint knowed how I was gonna see Eve if we ever made our way back to my world. Even though I promised Demas I would take his land, I still aint knowed if I could make nothin of myself if I stayed on that island. Up in Oregon Country, I thought maybe I could carve out a lil patch of my own, raise livestock, grow somethin on a plot. If Eve was with me, would my eyes change there? I seent favor for a woman turn to disfavor when other men got to lookin and judgin, when a man let other men decide for him if his woman was lady enough for respect, lady enough not to bring him no trouble. Could me and Eve be the same anywhere else? Could she be the same anywhere else?
“Naw, youre fine,” I said. “Plus you two gals dont seem to rush into nothin.” I laughed and she grinned and it felt like both a us was caught somewhere soft and slippery.
“Rosa will never marry,” Eve said.
“You think she dont want no family? She got a way with them nephews of yours.” I seent Rosa with them boys, especially the big one, Pierre, who she wouldnt admit she favored, and I remembered thinkin she would make a fine mother someday.
Eve, memberin that she offered me tea, stood to get a cup then quick sat back down. She leaned over with her fingers pressed to her mouth. “You must swear to never mention this to anyone.”
I wondered who she thought I was gonna tell.
“There were two young men I quite favored.” Eve blushed and I got the feelin that that blush wasnt much real. “Their families were very much concerned that our chilren would turn out like Rosa. Of course—”
“Like Rosa how?”
“Unlovely.” Eve said this like I shoulda knowed. “They were worried that my chilren would take after Papá and Rosa.”
“But … Rosa is a beaut.”
“You say that like Rosa is a mare.”
“Well, I dont mean it that way.”
“And this is why Papá likes you so.” Eve shook loose tea leaves into my cup. “You can see the beauty in all tings. Papá said that once about you.”
“Did that hurt you?”
“When those families refused me? I was angry with them, angry with Rosa, and sometimes, though Im ashamed to admit it now, I wanted to trow the truth in her face.”
She aint answer the way I hoped she might. And I knowed then that my eyes could change. And maybe it wouldnt always be cause a nother man caused it. Maybe it would be me seein somethin I aint never seent in her before.
“Rosa is not displeasing to the eye, but her perception of her own homeliness stains her mind and her heart,” Eve continued. “I tink this is why she will not allow herself to believe anyone can love her.”
“You think she dont feel loved?”
“Of course.” Eve turnt to look at the room where Demas slept and lowered her voice. “I often tink God must be very cruel to have Jeremias and I look so much like Mamá and to have lil Rosa turn out so … different.” Eve poured water and blew at the steam that rose tween us.
I wanted to tell her that people couldnt make heads or tails of me neither. That they was always watchin, tryna see through to my blood. I figured Rosa was always bein looked at that way too, but fore I could say more, I heard Rosa poundin the steps. She throwed open the door and them eyes was wide and she shouted at me—“Come! Come!”—like that was the only English word she knew.
I ran after her to the stable. Martinique, with her flattened ears, was lappin up water but Rosa mounted her anyway then she pointed me to Espina, who was already saddled.
“The soil collapsed!” Rosa said.
I wish I could member what I seent them thirty minutes we rode. Yellow pouis, maybe. Green grasses slick like wet limes. Guavas like cannonballs. But all I can really member was hearin the wailin of that horse.
Martinique slowed and Rosa and me raced to the middle of the field. I stared into the crooked hole, a lil less than ten feet by six, the mud on its edge carved with hoof marks. Grass that used to grow above it was now inside like them blades didnt know their place no more. The young colt, Martinique’s colt, Carlos, had fell in.
“I think his front right leg broke.”
The colt pushed at the same corner of that pit, lost his balance then got up again, like somehow the next time was gonna be different.
“We need to get the rope around him,” Rosa said.
“It wont work.”
“I didnt bring you here to tell me it wont work!”
You couldnt tell Rosa nothin so I did what she said. We worked for hours, fightin against that colt with the sun bullwhippin us until finally he got tired of fightin. Then Rosa threw herself into the hole. Roped his flank and his head. Talked to him while he made a movement all over her boots. “We might need another on his hind legs,” she shouted. “Throw me down the other rope.”
“Naw, I cant let you get behind him.”
“Damn you, Creadon Rampley!” Rosa’s face was sweaty and bluish. “Im already in the hole. You dont tell me what I cannot do!”
“Imma do it,” I said. “Get on outta there.”
“No.”
“Then I aint throwin n
o more rope.”
“Ive just now managed to calm him!” Rosa climbed out, spittin angry, mutterin curses I aint know she knowed. “He does not know you.”
“He knows me.”
“He does not know you as well as me.”
“He knows me good,” I said, jumpin in.
I looked up into her face all shiny with sweat, then made my way over to Carlos, who clacked his teeth, tryna tell me how much he ached and how he wanted no more of it. “All right,” I whispered. I tied his legs, knotted them good then worked like hell to tip him on his side. He was angry, all right. Rosa hitched the ropes to Martinique and Espina. We worked the ropes, inch by inch, easin Carlos up the incline.
The break was worse than I thought. Made worse I was sure by the towin. I wasnt gonna tell her that, though. Wasnt much we could do about it no how.
“No,” Rosa said, fore I even spoke it.
I watched Rosa circle him then I watched how she stared at Martinique, how Martinique left Carlos and walked toward Rosa, head down like she was mumblin in their private language. Them Rendóns and their languages. Rosa shook her head at the mare like she wanted Martinique to take back what she said, but Martinique didnt or wouldnt.
Rosa untied the ropes. She whispered to the colt, caressed his muzzle and his neck, told him to fight against what we knew had to be done. The colt let out a soft noise, like a purr, like it was all he had left.
“No, no, no, not you too,” Rosa cried.
I watched her help that colt into the world. Rosa had been so sure of herself then. Gentle. Coaxin Martinique til she foaled the most comely creature any of us had seent. Carlos, she named him. It pained Rosa to watch him grow up with me. She snuck into the barn some nights, brushed him down, give him secret morsels. She loved him, loved all of them horses. I aint never seent tenderness like Rosa had.
“Come,” I said, reachin for her. “Come.” I used the word Rosa said to me when she ran inside knowin I was gonna follow her out to that field without question. I took her hand. I aint knowed I could comfort nobody til I got to that island and saw that that was what people did for each other. “You done your best.”
Rosa wept into me that afternoon. Cried not just for the colt, I think, but most specially, for the shame of bein so human that she had to suffer a nother break to the heart.
October 1814
Demas wanted to throw a party. A fête, he called it.
“I cant invite Trinis to a wedding and nobody know the boy I puttin with Eve,” he said.
It was supposed to be a small affair. Two of his nephews from Siparia, a handful of neighbors. But word spread.
“DeGannes not comin?” somebody yelled out from the crowd.
“We ent have nuff rum for DeGannes!” someone else replied to much laughter.
That rum was sweet and dark and flowin and I aint never had nothin like it since. The afternoon sky was pitted with swellin clouds and I remember that somebody brung a drum and a fiddle, and writin about what that music felt like inside me wont do it no justice. But it wasnt no small thing, what I felt.
When the music men broke for a nother round of rum, some of the old fellas told stories. One was about the legend of the Arena Massacre of 1699. How the Amerindians was forced into slavery and taken to other islands. How some of them rose up, killed all the priests who preached the virtues of submission, ambushed the governor and threw his body into the river before drownin themselves in the sea. “The English, when dey come and hear dat story, dey write back home to England and dey does tell how horrible life was for dat poor Spanish governor!” They laughed.
Eve warned me that same mornin not to go and fill up my belly too fast. She said Trinidadians didnt come to no place empty-handed, and she was sure right. They come with roast pork, corn pudding, ochroes, eddoes, grilled shark. The laughter was loud and reminded me of better days with Pa and the brigade. Then bout two hours in, the sky opened. Pushed guests inside and onto the verandah where they started speakin a Spanish different from how Demas spoke it to me. I missed some words. Lots. Laughed once or twice when I wasnt supposed to. Felt like a fool. Then suddenly, I felt outta place. Like I wasnt never gonna be a part a that world.
But lookin over at Eve … she was happy. She chatted away with the womenfolk, kissed “aunties,” served “uncles” plates of food. She was wearin a dance dress. High waist, short sleeves in a cream-colored fabric. She was a real fine woman. And I was a real lucky man who couldnt quite feel all that luck just then.
Earlier, when we was all outside, I seent Rosa. She had her hair styled real neat. Had put on a simple dress to please Demas, greeted guests, smiled at the baby somebody pushed in her arms. But when I looked round again, Rosa wasnt nowhere in sight. Up in the sky, dark clouds was spinnin. That weather come up outta nowhere. It was maybe a half hour later that Demas come up to me. “Where did Rosa run off to? Go and find her, please.”
I caught bursts of laughter as I passed the side window. I had on my hat but it was gettin soaked pretty good as I headed to the stable. When I got there, I seent that Martinique was missin. So I waited maybe twenty minutes and when I finally decided to go back to the house, I heard Rosa comin up.
“Your pa been lookin for you,” I said.
Rosa shrugged like she aint care. She had been pretty mad since we started gettin ready for the wedding. Eve was spendin her days sewin dresses and tablecloths, and Rosa had to do even more housekeepin.
“Demas is gonna be angry you took her out.” I nodded at Martinique, who was sickly, but Rosa flicked her hand in the air like she was brushin away a pesky gnat. She wrung out the rain from the hem of her dress then I seent her wipe her eyes.
“Somethin botherin you?”
“Go back inside. Youre missing your party.”
“Is that why you cryin? Cause aint nobody throwin you a party?”
“Dont be absurd.”
I reached for her saddle and stroked Martinique as I pulled the lead. Rosa walked beside me. Like she was holdin in her breath. She had her eyes shut in that way you do when you tryna keep tears from rollin out. Where your back teeth is set and your lips is pinched, and the worst thing you can do is talk. “It aint the party is it?”
She shook her head. Them tears stayed back but I figured they wouldnt for long.
“I wont tell nobody,” I said.
Rosa loosed her bonnet strings. Her cheeks had red inside em, flushed like somebody had colored them different from the rest of her. She took the lead from me and walked ahead like she aint have no more interest in talkin. But then I heard her voice: “I went to talk to my mother. We buried her down off the south riding path—the one I led you on the first time you rode with me—over on the other side of the hills. The sun shines there most of the day and Mamá always liked the sunshine. I sat next to her grave, pulling weeds, trying to make sure I stayed long enough so everyone would be gone from the house when I returned. But then it began to rain. At first the clouds looked as if they might move another way, so I waited. When I began making my way home, it rained so hard, I could no longer see the path. I cut through to Monsieur DeGannes, thinking I would take shelter in his stable.” Rosa closed her eyes again. “No one expects a visitor to approach from behind a stable,” she said. “I was such a fool.” Her lashes was still wet and sparkled like ice. “I remember when Papá and Jeremias helped him build that barn. Jeremias began talking at lunch and supper about some painter. Lancelot or Lancret, I think was his name. Papá said Monsieur DeGannes had been filling his ears with too much book nonsense, he forbade Jeremias from seeing Monsieur again. But Jeremias loved Monsieur from the first days. He disobeyed Papá and began taking Francine to visit Monsieur. So there Jeremias was, inviting Francine, who he wasnt supposed to be with, to spend time with Monsieur, who he also wasnt supposed to be with.” Rosa placed her hands on her hips, pressin her weight onto one leg. “Francine was with DeGannes in his stable today. They were more together than Ive ever seen …” Rosa smushed her palms together
like that was the one way to make sensa what she seent. “At first, I thought it was a struggle—but then Francine opened her eyes and they were soft. Like how you look at someone you—” Then Rosa stared at me and I felt a strange charge. Like somebody was really seein me. “I think Jeremias has been betrayed by Francine since the beginning.” Rosa dug her boot tip into the dirt like her father always did. “François may not be his child. Pierre either. My God …” she whispered. “DeGannes is written all over those boys. In the too-pale skin, the lumpy, long noses—none of us have that nose,” she said. “How could I not have known? I was the one who told Papá that Jeremias had been with Francine. It was my word that caused my brother to be thrown from this family.”
“But you seent him and her together, didnt you?”
“Did I?” she said. “I think, but I dont know anymore. If Papá had any doubts …”
Rosa told me what she seent years back—Francine up against a tree, Jeremias holdin her wrists over her head, his face at her neck, Francine wrigglin away after seein Rosa.
“You told the truth as you knowed it.”
“But what about Jeremias? How long has this affair been going on?”
“Did they see you?”
She shook her head. “You dont understand.” Rosa threw off her bonnet. Her hair was puffy and droopy and it looked like somebody could throw himself in and sleep in it. “If I tell Papá this truth, everything will be undone. He will take Jeremias in again and my brother will have this land. There will be no you and me and Eve sharing it. You will start with nothing and I will start with less than nothing. Jeremias hates us all too much to have any of us live here after Papá is gone.”
“I aint marryin Eve for that.”
“But what does it say about me that I dont wish to tell Papá the truth? That I would have my brother continue to live in a marriage of lies, raising two boys that might not even be ours.”
“Course they are. Yall love all over them boys.” I pulled Rosa into the stable. I think I did it cause I aint want the guests seein her like that. But maybe it was cause I wanted to be there more than I wanted to be in that house.
Book of the Little Axe Page 27
